Journal Articles
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915
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Item Global Solutions for Sustainable Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Systems and Their Suitability to the New Zealand Market(MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2025-05) Harvey NA; Rasheed EO; Amores TRP; Molina JLThis paper attempts to find alternative ways in which heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration systems can be made more energy efficient and sustainable at a global level. Eight technologies or solutions that either passively or supplementarily reduce the heating or cooling load required by a structure are detailed. These technologies or solutions were then presented to heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration industry professionals in New Zealand to determine their viability and further establish market readiness towards integrating new, innovative, and sustainable solutions in New Zealand. A literature review was conducted to establish the performance of the selected solutions and understand their operational principles and the efficiency they provided. Qualitative research and data collected via semi-structured interviews provided the data for assessing the viability of the selected technologies in the New Zealand market. Following a thematic and hybrid-thematic analysis of the data, the technologies were ranked, and suggestions were made to help improve innovation and energy efficiency in the heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration industry in New Zealand. Of the technologies selected, airtightness, heat recovery ventilation retrofits, materials and design principles, and photovoltaic hot water heating were identified as the most viable. The New Zealand market was deemed not to be in a good position to adopt new or alternative solutions. The main issues affecting New Zealand’s market readiness to assimilate innovative and energy-efficient solutions are a lack of new technologies, poor standards of education throughout the industry, a lack of regulation, and a lack of government incentives.Item β-Casein A1 and A2: Effects of polymorphism on the cheese-making process(Published by Elsevier Inc. and Fass Inc. on behalf of the American Dairy Science Association, 2023-08) Vigolo V; Visentin E; Ballancin E; Lopez-Villalobos N; Penasa M; De Marchi MOf late, "A2 milk" has gained prominence in the dairy sector due to its potential implications in human health. Consequently, the frequency of A2 homozygous animals has considerably increased in many countries. To elucidate the potential implications that beta casein (β-CN) A1 and A2 may have on cheese-making traits, it is fundamental to investigate the relationships between the genetic polymorphisms and cheese-making traits at the dairy plant level. Thus, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the relevance of the β-CN A1/A2 polymorphism on detailed protein profile and cheese-making process in bulk milk. Based on the β-CN genotype of individual cows, 5 milk pools diverging for presence of the 2 β-CN variants were obtained: (1) 100% A1; (2) 75% A1 and 25% A2; (3) 50% A1 and 50% A2; (4) 25% A1 and 75% A2; and (5) 100% A2. For each cheese-making day (n = 6), 25 L of milk (divided into 5 pools, 5 L each) were processed, for a total of 30 cheese-making processes. Cheese yield, curd nutrient recovery, whey composition, and cheese composition were assessed. For every cheese-making process, detailed milk protein fractions were determined through reversed-phase HPLC. Data were analyzed by fitting a mixed model, which included the fixed effects of the 5 different pools, the protein and fat content as a covariate, and the random effect of the cheese-making sessions. Results showed that the percentage of κ-CN significantly decreased up to 2% when the proportion of β-CN A2 in the pool was ≥25%. An increase in the relative content of β-CN A2 (≥50% of total milk processed) was also associated with a significantly lower cheese yield both 1 and 48 h after cheese production, whereas no effects were observed after 7 d of ripening. Concordantly, recovery of nutrients reflected a more efficient process when the inclusion of β-CN A2 was ≤75%. Finally, no differences in the final cheese composition obtained by the different β-CN pools were observed.Item Efficient Monocular Human Pose Estimation Based on Deep Learning Methods: A Survey(IEEE, 2024-05-09) Yan X; Liu B; Qu GHuman pose estimation (HPE) is a crucial computer vision task with a wide range of applications in sports medicine, healthcare, virtual reality, and human-computer interaction. The demand for real-time HPE solutions necessitates the development of efficient deep-learning models that can be deployed on resource-constrained devices. While a few surveys exist in this area, none delve deeply into the critical intersection of efficiency and performance. This survey reviews the state-of-the-art efficient deep learning approaches for real-time HPE, focusing on strategies for improving efficiency without compromising accuracy. We discuss popular backbone networks for HPE, model compression techniques, network pruning and quantization, knowledge distillation, and neural architecture search methods. Furthermore, we critically analyze the existing works, highlighting their strengths, weaknesses, and applicability to different scenarios. We also present an overview of the evaluation datasets, metrics, and design for efficient HPE. Finally, we identify research gaps and challenges in the field, providing insights and recommendations for future research directions in developing efficient and scalable HPE solutions.Item Efficiency of the Islamic Banking Sector: Evidence from Two-Stage DEA Double Frontiers Analysis(MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2023-03) Mai XTT; Nguyen HTN; Ngo T; Le TDQ; Nguyen LP; Ftiti ZThis paper examines the multi-dimensional efficiency of the Islamic banking sector and its determinants, including the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. To do that, we use a novel approach of two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) double frontiers to evaluate the overall efficiency of 79 Islamic banks across 16 countries (2005–2020). In the first-stage analysis, we found that the Islamic banking sector experienced an increasing trend in its efficiency and performance, even during the recent pandemic, although it varied across banks and countries. Our empirical results of the second-stage analysis further showed that economic development can help countries both withstand the recent pandemic and improve the efficiency and performance of their (Islamic) banking system. This, in turn, could help speed up the recovery process of the global economy. Since there is evidence that the Islamic banking sector is resilient to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is expected that this sector will be a driving force of such recovery.Item A Dataset for the Vietnamese Banking System (2002–2021)(MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2022-09) Le TDQ; Ho TH; Ngo T; Nguyen DT; Tran SH; Guijarro FThis data article describes a dataset that consists of key statistics on the activities of 45 Vietnamese banks (e.g., deposits, loans, assets, and labor productivity), operated during the 2002–2021 period, yielding a total of 644 bank-year observations. This is the first systematic compilation of data on the splits of state vs. private ownership, foreign vs. domestic banks, commercial vs. policy banks, and listed vs. nonlisted banks. Consequently, this arrives at a unique set of variables and indicators that allow us to capture the development and performance of the Vietnamese banking sector over time along many different dimensions. This can play an important role for financial analysts, researchers, and educators in banking efficiency and performance, risk and profit/revenue management, machine learning, and other fields. Dataset: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RIWA3B Dataset License: CC0Item A bio-economic modelling comparison of a Friesian Bull-Beef system and a New Generation Beef system with Friesian bulls slaughtered at 10–14 months old(Taylor and Francis Group on behalf of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 2024-02-05) Farrell LJ; Morris ST; Kenyon PR; Tozer PRFinishing of dairy-origin calves in an accelerated ‘New generation beef’ (NGB) beef finishing system for slaughter up to 14 months of age has potential co-sector benefits. These include production efficiencies and a reduced number of dairy calves slaughtered at a very young age. In the present study, a NGB system and an 18-month Bull-Beef system were first modelled separately, both purchasing three-month-old Friesian bull calves. Then Mixed systems with varying proportions of both NGB and Bull-Beef animals were modelled. Production, feed balance and profitability were compared, using cash operating surplus (COS) as a profit indicator. In the NGB scenario, double the number of animals were finished compared with the Bull-Beef scenario; however, monthly feed demand was less synchronous with predicted pasture supply, requiring more feed transfer via pasture baleage. The COS for the NGB system was $−571/ha, with less income and greater costs than the Bull-Beef system (COS = $2026/ha). Break-even prices for NGB animals were up to 74% above current prices, but break-even prices were less in Mixed systems with a greater proportion of Bull-Beef animals. Without high price premiums, challenges remain for the NGB systems appeal to beef finishers due to their low slaughter weights and sale prices.Item Efficiency in Vietnamese banking: A meta-regression analysis approach(MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2021-09) Ho TH; Nguyen DT; Ngo T; Le TDQ; Balvers R; Boubaker SThis study explains the differences and variances in the efficiency scores of the Vietnamese banking sector retrieved from 27 studies published in refereed academic journals under the frame-work of meta-regression analysis. These scores are mainly based on frontier efficiency measurements, which essentially are Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) for Vietnamese banks over the period of 2007–2019. The meta-regression is estimated by using truncated regression to obtain bias-corrected scores. Our findings suggest that only the year of publication is positively correlated with efficiency, whilst the opposite is true for the data type, and sample size.Item Managing bank performance under COVID-19: A novel inverse DEA efficiency approach(John Wiley and Sons Ltd on behalf of International Federation of Operational Research Societies, 2023-09) Boubaker S; Le TDQ; Ngo TThe evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic is highly unpredictable; however, its impacts are limited to neither a single sector nor a single country. This study evaluates the performance and efficiency of 49 Islamic banks across 10 countries during 2019-2020 to assess how those banks can preserve their performance and remain resilient in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the conventional inverse data envelopment analysis (InvDEA) approach, we show that because of reductions in their outputs, 31 out of the 49 banks studied would need to reduce their inputs so that their efficiency can remain unchanged. However, we show that only 10 banks need to make such adjustments to maintain their efficiency levels using our proposed InvDEA efficiency model. The adjustment for those 10 banks would help in reducing more inputs, suggesting more cost savings, and improving the overall efficiency of the examined banks, compared with the other 31 banks.Item Simulating Beef Cattle Herd Productivity with Varying Cow Liveweight and Fixed Feed Supply(MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2021-01-06) Farrell LJ; Morris ST; Kenyon PR; Tozer PRThe liveweight of New Zealand beef cows has increased in recent decades due to selection for higher growth rates. Published data suggest that the efficiency of beef cow production decreases with increasing cow liveweight. Changes in beef herd size, feed demand, production, and cash operating surplus (COS) were simulated with average mature cow liveweight varied to 450, 500, 550, and 600 kg. With total annual beef feed demand fixed at the same level, in all scenarios cow numbers and numbers of weaned calves decreased with increasing cow liveweight. When the model was run with consistent efficiency of calf production across the mature cow liveweights (scenario A), heavier cows were more profitable. However, using published efficiency data (scenarios B and C), herds of heavier cows were less profitable. The likely most realistic scenario for New Zealand hill country farms (scenario B) had COS decrease from New Zealand Dollars (NZD) 456/ha with a herd of 450 kg cows to NZD 424/ ha with 600 kg cows. Reductions in COS were relatively small, which may not deter farmers from breeding heavier cows for higher calf growth rates. However, the results of this analysis combined with indirect potential economic impacts suggest that the heaviest cows may not be optimal for New Zealand hill country conditions.
